"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.

This was an interesting look into the development process within Microsoft. I'm not sure if the person who wrote it was involved in the recent MinWin effort as that was an effort to streamline things. Still, however, it was a break from their normal process which we've seen described in similar fashion before.

All that being said, while MS clearly has some flaws in its project management, one should not infer from this rant that the larger *nix world is not susceptible to the same flaws. Accelerated graphics is a perfect example of that what with Compiz, Beryl, Emerald, Mutter, and KWin all reinventing the wheel the first time around and then Wayland and Mir (what about X12?) looking to create anew rather than refine existing work. While MS does not fix every bug, because its programmers are not merely trying to scratch their itches, they are forced to do more QA testing and fixing. One can debate about Win8 but aside from that, MS does not release half-finished products the way that you do sometimes see in OSS-land.

I say all this as someone who has a Windows 8 laplet (laptop/tablet), a Suse laptop, and a dual Win7/Ubuntu desktop.